When Edwin A. Abbott wrote his strongly allegorical novel “Flatland” in the 1880s, about a two-dimensional land whose inhabitants vehemently and strictly opposed any thought or talk of the possibility of any other realm outside their own, he prophetically described the international science community of the 20th and (thus far, the) 21st centuries.

What the vast majority of the science community does and has been doing is to strictly limit its discoveries and research to its own physical realm, punishing those who dared to venture beyond with marginalization and exile from the scope of their recognition and acceptance.

Like the Flatlanders in Abbott’s story, they strictly refuse to accept the possibility of the existence of any other realm beyond their perceivable and tangible own, which in my humble opinion, isn’t exactly a very scientific approach, and comparable to their predecessors’ attitude in the days before Columbus, when they thought the earth was flat…
No new realms, much less new dimensions to discover. It’s as if they saw their job as building a mental prison (“Matrix”) for their community of believers (for what else have they created than another faith in the dogma, “There is no other”?), restricting their existence to the realm in which they dwell while their bodies remain alive.

They also stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the fact that information does not come about by itself.

The Flatlanders of the 21st century have reached a level of bigotry and hypocrisy that Abbott never would have deemed possible, I’m sure.

So, why is God allowed on the political battlefield, and used as an excuse or incentive for one Nation to exterminate another, while His existence at the same time is strongly denied in that same nation’s sacred halls of higher learning?
Probably because they figure the only thing God is good for is to use Him for their own selfish and mass-murderous plans. They would never ever grant Him credit for having created the vastness of the universe. “No,” they say, “That was coincidence!”
He was the One Who placed them in their high office and gave them the authority to push the red button that would signify the death of untold thousands of (in reality) innocent victims (accused of acts of terrorism, or at least intended ones, of course), but He certainly wasn’t capable of creating the world as it is in the first place.
No, aliens probably did that. They came here gazillions of years ago and left the necessary information for our evolution somewhere in the dust. Let them worry about where they came from… Some even higher race fom yet another galaxy, perhaps. But a Creator from a Realm outside of and even vaster than our physical universe? – “Taboo!”

The credentials of our enlightenment are obvious: “Hey, we are the people who have invented television, i-pads, radar and remote controlled drones to eliminate our enemies. It’s obvious we know what we’re talking about!”
The word adequately used to describe such attitudes is arrogance. And the one to describe that kind of behavior, hypocrisy. “Keep God out of science, but use Him for us to get to use our scientific toys on the lab rats in the Mideast!”

“God may not have created the universe, but He sure made America the ruler of the world” seems to be the consensus of enlightenment cooked up at 58 East 68th Street, New York, along with their hoards of employed think tanks, and preached with evangelistic fervor by their likewise employed media. If God didn’t exist, the warmongers in Gloryland would yet have to invent Him.
Let’s hope for them that their Creator won’t get terribly teed off with their act, and their glory should come falling flat on its face any day soon, reducing their physical stature to their present spiritual one.

In June, immediately after she stopped nursing her 19 months old daughter JiaJia, my Chinese wife became pregnant. As a German citizen, I would have had the right to apply to a special visa for my wife in order to have our child delivered in Germany – evading the current restrictions that didn’t allow her to enter the EU in the first place, such as the condition that she learn German first and absolve a language exam, etc.

However, there was no sign from the “Top” that it was part of our Maker’s plan for us to go there, and at times I still keep wondering why. My life as a musician was easier, more enjoyable and often more inspiring than my current life as an English teacher in a country that may well be the noisiest in the world, and sadly, one of the filthiest.
But having a teacher has its advantages. Other than in the West, where teachers have the image of “The Enemy” in probably 90% of their students, my new profession is a respected one here, and I’ve been told repeatedly, even after this relatively short time, that I’ve touched and affected my students’ lives, and perhaps more so than I was able to – on a personal level – as a musician.

Then there is the political aspect.

I love Western culture, and by Western I mean the same that 95% of the world mean when they say “Western”: The American culture. And I’m not talking about the main stream culture, the Britneys and Lady Gagas that only put a stamp on Don McLean’s fulfilled prophecy about “the day the music died.”
I’m talking about artists of the kind you don’t even hear in Europe unless you’re really into music:
Patty Griffin, Richard Julien and the galore of Christian bands and singers that are basically nobodies in the world of showbiz, but constitute a large part of my inspiration since years: Caedmon’s Call, Jeremy Camp, Jill Phillips and her husband Andy Gullahorn and oodles of others.

I love to listen to their music and sometimes I dream of a world in which I would be able to communicate with people that are even remotely on a similar wavelength to mine, who are able to speak more than the very, very broken English of most of my students (not to mention the majority of the large population around me), but what are the options?
Subscribe to a policy that is based on murdering our fellow humans in far-off lands on grounds that not even the bravest of the outlawed preachers and self-declared “revolutionaries for Christ” dare to doubt even though they’re proven to be totally ridiculous?
Or for that matter… Which of the wars that America – the great leader of our great and glorified Western culture – has fought for the past 6 decades could have really be called justified – from a point of view that even remotely resembles the teachings of Christ?

Korea? Vietnam? — Sure, they wanted to stop Communism. Perhaps at one point they realized that a more effective way would be to apply the slogan, “If you can’t lick’em, join’em” and infiltrate the enemy with McDonalds and Coke, as I see here, the possibly most capitalistic country I’ve ever been to, that’s officially “Communist.”
And if so… for what?

What is it that Big Brother or Uncle Sam is pushing on us? What’s so wonderful that they just can’t stop pushing it down the throat of the rest of the world? Certainly not Patty Griffin…

With a foreign debt of cosmic proportions it’s even ridiculous that the rest of the world keeps looking up to America as its great white hope, a dream and fairy tale that only becomes reality in one place for a limited time, namely a time-span of approximately 100 to 180 minutes on the TV – and movie screens around the world. The American Dream made in Hollywood.
As far as the bitter reality is concerned, all that every administration from Nixon to Obama has been pushing like a heroin dealer dressed up like Santa Claus has been the inevitable “death by overdose:” The world domination of bankruptcy.

What world would possibly be easier to rule than one of bankrupt suckers who don’t have a dime, whose money all went up into thin air, invested in some spoof concocted by some real smart wise asses, only to land all the power thinkable in the hands of a tiny clan who had the balls to lie and lie, and then lie some more, until it made Pinocchio’s nose look like a pimple in comparison?

I don’t know whether this far end of the world is going to be any safer when the shit hits the fan… possibly not. But it’s not just an issue of safety and survival. It’s an issue of dignity. I’d sure hate to wake up in the middle of all those wise asses who actually thought that their country was going to save the world while they were all pumping their tax money into making the exact opposite happen.

They say ignorance is bliss. There’s a lot of ignorance going on all around me right now. They don’t have a clue. But there is yet another extreme, and a whole nuther story, and that’s when people blatantly defy the truth, because they just can’t stand to hear it. And that’s precisely where I don’t want to wake up when the shit hits the fan. And hit the fan it will.

I guess the Boss knows what He’s doing in telling me to better stay put…